


She Who Watches the World Burn

by izadreamer



Series: zexal warfare au [2]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V, Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Academia's attack on Heartland, Blood, Gen, Guns, Minor Character Death, Violence, Wounds, character development for Kotori
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-05
Updated: 2015-05-05
Packaged: 2018-03-29 03:11:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3880066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/izadreamer/pseuds/izadreamer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Kotori doesn’t duel, and hasn’t bothered to learn how. With this by her side, she won’t need to.”</p><p>This is how an angel dies. Surrounded by fire and with a gun in her hand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She Who Watches the World Burn

**Author's Note:**

> Second fanfic based in Zexal Warfare au, created by mizaruto. This one focuses on Kotori during Academia's first attack. Some mentions of past Yuma/Kotori, but otherwise no pairings. Warnings for blood, character death, violence, and wounds.
> 
> A quick note-- in this fic, Durbe and Takashi became friends after Zexal events.

Kotori was sixteen years old when Yuma left. She remembers the last time she saw him clearly, a cherished memory tainted by pain and bitterness, a memory of happier times.

She remembers the way the setting sun glinted off what had once been Astral’s grave, the warmth of Yuma’s hands as he held hers, the brightness of his smile. She remembers the way it hadn’t reached his eyes.

“I’ll only be gone for a week, at most,” Yuma told her, smiling a false smile that made her heart hurt. Yuma was always grinning like that, those days.

“You’d better,” Kotori said then. She’d taken her worry and buried it in anger, because Yuma would never have burdened her with his fears, not even if she’d asked. She’d gotten used to it, by then. “Or I’ll never forgive you!”

He’d laughed nervously, one hand taken away to rub sheepishly at his neck. She remembers how cold the wind had been against her palm.

“Okay, I promise,” he assured her, and then he paused and even to this day, years later, Kotori hasn’t forgotten the way the shadow entered his eyes, frighteningly similar to the tearful smile on his face three years before, after the war was over and almost everyone was dead.

“But you have to promise me something too!” He insisted suddenly, taking her hand again. There’d been something desperate in his eyes, something fearful. “Watch over everyone for me, okay? Take care of them.”

She smiled at him, weakly. “I’ll try.”

She remembers his laugh. How forceful it had been, how pained. How false, just like his smile.

“I’m counting on you, Kotori!”

“I know. See you in a week, Yuma,” Kotori said, because what could she say to that? So instead she said nothing and watched him leave with a faint smile on her face.

Kotori remembers waiting, in the beginning, believing in that promise. A week. Two weeks. A month. Then a year, and then another, until finally—

Yuma never came back and Kotori stopped waiting.

***

 _That_ day starts out like any other. Later, some will whisper that they should have known, that the signs were there and that they could have prepared. That if they’d just taken the time to see, some may not have died.

Those people are fools.

Kotori wakes up to blue skies and the song of the birds, to sunshine and laughter. The air is pleasantly warm as she hurries to work, and the vibe of the coffee shop is as kindly and as welcoming as it always is when she dashes through its doors.

There are no warnings, no messages from the stars. There is nothing they could have seen to notify them of the coming tragedy.

Only screaming and fire, and by then it is far too late to do anything.

***

Heartland is burning.

Heartland is burning, its people are dying, and Kotori is dying with them.

An elbow catches her in the gut and she bites her lip to keep from crying out, shifting away. She’s huddled behind the counter of an abandoned side shop with her co-workers, a small band of roughly six or seven people. Kotori doesn’t even know all their names, and there is a high risk that they are the last people she’ll ever see. It’s a terrifying thought.

Another quake shakes the mall, sending dust flying from the floor into her eyes, and crumpling pieces of the wall. An old woman, who had smiled and joked warmly with Kotori about annoying customers only two hours before, curls a bit tighter around herself and sobs.

There is yelling and laughter, then the sound of something breaking over their heads; the glass roof of the mall shatters, and Kotori screams involuntarily as she falls to her knees and covers her head in a feeble attempt for protection. The glass rains down on the small group, slicing small cuts in their skin. She winces at the sting.

The mall is breaking apart, and Kotori isn’t sure how much longer it can stand. The small coffee shop where she used to work has already gone down in flames. She was inside when it started, and her body is dusted with soot because of it. Her lungs ache from the smoke that still hangs in the air. She is too hot, as though she’s burning up, and feels dizzy when she attempts to stand or moves too quickly. She silently prays that she won’t pass out, that the damage isn’t as bad as it feels.

When her manager calls out over the small group, his voice rough from the smoke and thin with exhaustion, she barely has enough strength left to raise her head.

“Does anyone here…” he trails off, coughing into his sleeve. “Does anyone… have any medical experience?”

Kotori blinks blearily at the ground with watery, aching eyes and slowly lifts her head. “I do,” she croaks, and descends into another fit of coughs that leaves her throat raw and stinging. She clears her throat, ignoring the pain, and tries to speak again.

“I do,” she repeats, a little stronger. “Two years of school… I’m in training to be a doctor. Why?”

“That’s good,” he mutters, and after another cautionary glance around he risks rushing to her side. He brushes the glass shards from her shoulders and then grips her arm. “Can… you stand?”

Kotori breathes in slowly. The answer is no, she doesn’t think she can, but she looks over the rest of the group, tired and defeated, and her heart clenches. She nods. Her manager gives her a wan smile, and with great effort helps her climb to her feet.

Kotori sways, her legs trembling, but she gathers up strength she didn’t know she still had and stays standing, one hand resting against the wall for support. “Why… did you want…” she coughs again, nearly falling over if not for the firm grip the older man still had on her arm. “A doctor…?”

He looks out over the group, then turns back to her with an exhausted sigh. “Do you think… we could make it out?” He gestures weakly at the hazy air and the crumbling walls. “With all this… if we get out...” His voice lowers. “Will we survive, or is it too late?”

Kotori stares at him, pale and trembling. She wracks her mind for anything she might have learned about smoke inhalation and quick remedies, if there’s any chance that it’s not as bad as the kindly man before her just implied.

“I…” she starts, and stares at the group, forcing herself to look at their numerous wounds as she struggles to recall facts and treatments. “First degree burns, some second degree…” she murmurs under her breath. “I can probably treat that… smoke inhalation for sure…” she trails off.

“Well?”

“It’s not the best,” Kotori admits, shakily. “I could… if we raid a store on the way out I might be able to make… some sloppy remedies but…” she hesitates. _‘It’s not likely everyone will make it out,’_ she doesn’t say, because her throat is too tight and she can’t force the words out.

“But we can make it?” her manager urges, intently. “We can survive?”

 _No,_ Kotori thinks, because smoke inhalation is worse than most give it credit for and she’s fairly certain that they’ve all breathed in too much. Even if they did make it out before the building collapsed and the soldiers found them, the damage might already be enough to do the job.

But she looks up at her manager, at his confident eyes and the shaky hope she finds there, and can’t bring herself to destroy it.

“Yes,” she lies.

“That’s good,” he whispers, relieved, and seems to sag, a weight taken off his shoulders. Kotori is too tired to feel guilty. “Then… Kotori, was it? May… may I ask you for one more favor?”

“What?”

His grip tightens on her arm and he gives her a regretful look. “Get them out, in my place.” He pauses, coughs into his arm. “Please.”

Kotori stares at him, horrified. “I… what about you?”

He bites his lip, casting another glance behind him. “My daughter… she works on the other side… it’s foolish, but she’s so far from an exit…”

“You want to help her,” Kotori finishes numbly. “Sir—”

“I know it’s foolish,” he says, quietly. “But I can’t leave until I’m sure…”

Kotori thinks of her own parents, of how her mother hadn’t answered her D-gazer and wonders, briefly, if her mother is as worried for her as this man is for his own daughter. Wonders if her mother is even alive. If his daughter is.

“Okay,” Kotori says, and hates how hopeful he looks. “I’ll… I’ll try…”

He smiles then, and she despises the false hope she’s given for their survival. “Everyone,” he calls, softly, and waits for their eyes to open and rest on them before he speaks. “I have somewhere I need to be,” he starts, and then holds a hand for silence when they open their mouths to protest.

“I have somewhere I need to be,” he croaks. “Kotori here… she’s a doctor. Follow her lead… she’ll get you out safe. Be careful.”

Kotori stays silent when their eyes turn to her, stiff and uncomfortable. She can no longer be sure if it’s from the effects of the smoke or her own fear. She almost tells them the truth—that she doesn’t know what to do, that she’s only in training, that she can’t get them out safely, that it’s a lie and a false hope and there is very little she can do.

But then their manager turns back to her and says, “Thank you,” and the words wither in her throat. She’s ashamed for thinking them, and for not the first time she wishes Yuma were here, that he’d be beside her. She misses his endless faith the most.

“Go save your daughter,” Kotori tells him, defeated. She watches him run off with mournful eyes and briefly hopes, for his sake, that his daughter is alive.

It’s only when he is out of sight, obscured by the smoke and dust, that Kotori looks back to face them. A small, injured group of inept duelists, outmatched by the unnamed soldiers slaughtering hundreds outside.

“What do we do?” one woman asks her brokenly, her voice teary. The muffled cries pause, and all eyes turn back to Kotori. Kotori, who is barely twenty, whose apron is still stained with coffee, who can barely stand. Kotori, who looks back at them, at their tear-streaked frightened faces, and feels the urge to start crying herself.

She squeezes her eyes shut, forcing back the tears. Curling her blistered palms into fists, Kotori squares her shoulders and lifts her head defiantly, because if she breaks now they will never leave this place alive.

She looks back at them with dry eyes and a fierce stare, Yuma’s words resounding through her head.

_“I’m counting on you, Kotori!”_

“What do we do?” the woman asks again, and Kotori tells her, “Survive.”

***

Much, much later, when the fires have died and the air has cleared, Tetsuo will ask Kotori how they made it out of the mall alive.

“I don’t know,” she will tell him, honestly. “I don’t know.”

Maybe it’s a miracle, or maybe it’s what left of Kotori’s luck guiding her to safety—whatever it is, it works. Bruised and tearful, coughing and scarred, the small group flees the building with makeshift bandages in their arms and packs full of food on their backs, Kotori in the lead.

They get out. In the end, that’s all that matters.

They aren’t strong though. They aren’t steady. Some lag behind; others stare out at the destruction with haunted, horrified eyes. Kotori can barely stand, and it comes as no surprise when her legs finally give out and send her plummeting to the earth.

A hand catches her arm then, accompanied by a worried voice, familiar and rough with smoke.

“Kotori?!”

It’s not the voice of a friend, but then, it’s not the voice of an enemy either. He hasn’t been an enemy for a long time now.

“Durbe,” she whispers, and looks up at him weakly. His hair and clothes are disheveled, and there’s a nasty burn on his arm and an equally nasty slice on his cheek, red blood dripping off his chin and staining his collar. “What…”

It takes her a moment, to remember—Durbe had worked in the mall as well, in the small bookstore near the bottom floor, right by—

“Mizael,” Kotori croaks, turning her head in a feeble effort to look for him. “He works… the pet shop… is he…?”

Durbe shakes his head, cutting her off. “No, he’s fine. He’s just behind with the other group.”

Kotori sighs a bit, relaxing in temporary relief. She doesn’t know Mizael and Durbe all that well, but they are important to Rio and therefore by extension important to Kotori. She’s glad they’re okay.

Then the rest of his words sink in, and she blinks slowly, squinting up at him. “The other…?”

He gently lowers her to the ground, shifting to the side so she can see the small group of survivors huddled behind him. Three children and four adults, scraped and bruised but alive.

One of the children breaks away from the group, walking up to her cautiously. His friends, a boy and a girl, grasp weakly at his coat, eyes worried, but he brushes them off. He stares down at her curiously with fever-bright gold eyes. He reminds her of Haruto, in a way—but this boy’s eyes are sharper. Angrier.

“She’s the one you were talking about?” the boy asks suddenly, whirling on Durbe. “She can barely stand, how she could be the one who— I’m not leaving Ruri and Yuuto with her!”

Durbe kneels down beside the boy, his face solemn. “She’s not the one I spoke of,” he admits, softly. “But she will keep you safe regardless. She’s a doctor. If any of you were to get hurt, she would know how to help. I wouldn’t leave you all with someone I didn’t trust.”

The boy wavers, his eyes darting back desperately to Kotori. “…Fine.”

Durbe nods and gently nudges the boy back to the group. He turns to Kotori, his apology written on his face, but all she does is force a weak smile and nod. She doesn’t blame the boy for his harsh words. It’s true after all, and Kotori hardly looks like she can look after herself, let alone anyone else.

“Kotori,” Durbe starts, then pauses. “Can I ask you a favor?”

His words strike a memory; Kotori recalls her manager and the last thing he’d said to her, and tries not to flinch. “Of course.”

He nods to the group behind him. “I’m sure you’ve already guessed, but could you look over them for me? There’s still some people trapped inside—I want to see if I can get them out.”

Kotori struggles to sit up, and gratefully accepts Durbe’s help in doing so. “Are you… sure? The mall… it’s not at all steady, Durbe…”

“It’s steady enough,” he replies calmly. “Please, Kotori.”

She stares up at him, but she can’t find it in her to argue. If she had the strength to stand, she would likely try to do the same. Kotori can’t fault him for that.

“Alright,” she agrees, softly. “But you better come back.”

He smiles; it seems genuine. “I will.”

There’s a muffled yell from far off and they turn, on edge and wary. Their fears are unfounded as it is Mizael who comes into view, emerging from the smoke with more survivors, most wounded. Kotori hopes she has enough cloth for bandages.

Mizael sees Durbe and his face twists. It’s likely that Durbe had long since informed him of his plan to reenter the building. Durbe just sighs.

“Thank you for this,” Durbe tells her, pushing off the ground to his feet, and then he runs over to Mizael’s side. She watches as they argue, Mizael angry and worried and Durbe responding impassively.

Finally, Mizael admits defeat, turning away from Durbe with a scowl. Durbe smiles, a little sad, resting his hand on his friend’s shoulder for brief moment in thanks. Then he turns his back to them and races towards the smoke, a cloth held over his mouth as he enters the burning building.

Mizael stares after him for a long moment before shaking his head in annoyance and leading the group to Kotori. He helps her to her feet with a surprising gentleness and hovers back as she puts herself to the task of applying first aid to any serious injuries.

“Are you hurt?” she asks him, the thought striking her suddenly. He doesn’t look injured—he has dirt smeared on his cheek and small scratches on his arms, but otherwise he looks unharmed—but she knows he could easily be hiding his wounds.

“I’m fine,” he snaps, voice clipped. He’s looking back towards the mall again, crossing and uncrossing his arms continuously. She lets it go, well aware of his worry.

It seems he doesn’t, however, because he flushes a little, looking back at her. “I’m fine,” he repeats, kinder, then frowns. “I can’t say the same for you,” he notes, giving her a cursory glance. “How long ago did you…?”

“Just a while ago,” Kotori rasps. “Group of… eight, I think. In the start.” She looks over the bunch, finishes tying off the bandage. “It’s more like twenty now, with the ones you brought out.”

“Hmm.”

Kotori bites her lip, but refuses to let the conversation die. She needs this, in a way. As uncommunicative and unfamiliar as Mizael is, she knows of him. Heartland is burning away, and what little she knows is quickly following. She needs something to hold on to, even if it’s as fleeting and meaningless as a discussion.

“When Durbe returns,” she starts, slowly, “where should we go?” She beckons to the gold-eyed boy from before, and he comes up reluctantly. She measures out bandages for the cut on his leg, her mind whirling. “Is there even a place safe to go?”

“Heartland Tower,” Mizael responds absently. “Kaito secured it, last I heard before the AR went down.”

Kotori closes her eyes in momentary relief. For a long while, she had feared that there would be no safe haven to run to. She should have known better, in hindsight. Kaito had always been good with emergencies.

She looks back to Mizael, another, less meaningful question on the tip of her tongue, but then she sees the look in his eyes and silences. He's subconsciously biting his lip, staring desperately at where Durbe had vanished. He has yet to return.

“He’ll be fine,” Kotori assures, gently. “He’ll come back.”

Mizael closes his eyes and scowls in what is either frustration or worry. “I kno—”

A loud crack splits the air, drowning out the rest of his words. Another follows in rapid session, and the fires roar like thunder, deafening and foreboding.

Mizael whips around, his eyes flying open. Kotori struggles to stand, her face pale, but in the end they can do nothing but watch because it is already far too late to do anything.

The mall, with its glass roofs and towering spires that had always gleamed like diamonds in the sun, collapses in on itself, the supports finally eaten away by the flames. Dust and debris fly out, soaring over their heads and lashing their bodies. The building crashes down with a loud boom that shakes the very earth itself, sending them toppling as they scramble for solid ground. The roar is deafening, but even then it does little to drown out Mizael’s cry.

“No—Durbe! _Durbe!”_

His voice cracks and he quiets, standing in stunned horror before the wrecked remains of what once was a place of laughter. He knows, even if he denies it. He knows, just as Kotori does, that there is no hope.

Durbe is dead.

***

Out of the twenty-seven people she starts with, only fifteen make it to the Tower. Some she loses to hunger; most of them are lost to smoke. Kotori watches their breaths fade and eyes empty with a hollow heart.

She can’t save them. She doesn’t have the means nor does she have the knowledge. In a way, that hurts the most.

She struggles regardless. Moreover, she struggles alone. Mizael had vanished not long after the building’s collapse, headed over to the schools in a desperate search for Haruto. She can’t blame him, and she doesn’t. Kaito is his friend, and Haruto his student. And the schools… they had fallen second.

The three children vanish as well. Not to death, thankfully, but to the shadows of the night. The gold-eyed brother steals away as she sleeps, his little sister and friend along with him. Durbe’s death and the slow deaths of the others had only deepened his mistrust in her abilities. It was inevitable he would choose his own way, his own path.

Kotori doesn’t waste time to search for them. They are out of her hands now, and whatever fate befalls them it will be on their hands alone. The only thing left she could possibly do for them is pray for their safety.

The rest remain with her. Kotori takes the lead more often than not, distributing food and patching up their wounds. She keeps them together with comforting words and promises of safety. Arguments are quick to rise and faster to fall. In-fighting will not help them now.

They travel late, when the shadows are long and the streets more likely to be empty. They spend most of the day in suffocating silence, scattered throughout the rubble. Nights are spent huddled together in alleys, forever wary of an attack.

Sometimes, under the cover of darkness when she is sure she can’t be seen, Kotori will mourn. She draws her legs close to her chest and presses her face against her knees, willing the tears to come. She’s always been quick to cry, but she has never found it to be a fault. Tears help her move on, help her extinguish her anger.

Yet, for the first time in her life, the tears don’t come. Her eyes remain dry, and eventually Kotori stops trying.

It’s the first time in her life that she is too numb for tears.

She distracts herself from this revelation with tasks. Shifts for night guards, what to look for when they loot abandoned stores. It helps, if only a little.

It takes a week to reach Heartland Tower. A week full of agonizing stillness and muffled sobs, of fear and worry and constant paranoia. When they finally reach the Tower’s door, scraped and bleeding and _whole,_ Kotori cries for the first time since the invasion began.

***

Three weeks pass. Not much changes.

What does change is few and far between—Kotori sleeps easier at night, for once, her paranoid mind eased by the ever lurking presence of the guards and the security of the Tower’s colorful walls. The fear that had haunted her for most of the journey here has passed, and her heart feels lighter. Her grief is slow to come, but come it does, and the tears rolling down her cheeks are bitter with loss and sweet with relief. It seems her heart can still hurt after all.

The rest remains unaffected. People still die from the smoke and fires; still vanish into the night looking for loved ones. Fear of discovery strikes deep, poisoning their every action. Tensions are high, morale is low. There’s a war outside their door, and war right here at home.

Kotori is so very tired of war, of watching her friends die. She’s had enough of that to last a lifetime.

In the end, there’s nothing she can do about it. She spends her days helping the other doctors with their patients. What little holes are left in her training they quickly fill, instructing her calmly as they stich up wounds and apply salve to burns. She hovers by their side and copies them. Eventually, they send her off to do her own work—she knows enough to get by with her own handful of patients.

The work is tiring and gruesome. She spends hours laboring in the hot room, bandaging wounds and helping people through their grief. She dodges the sympathetic looks she gets when she speaks, for the smoke from _that_ day has scarred her throat permanently, left its searing mark on her voice. She will always have a roughness to her tone, a gravelly echo to her words. It’s not so much the loss that bothers her, but the pity—there are many who have lost much more than just a pretty voice. Kotori’s loss is all but nonexistent to those who have lost much more—a limb, a life, or a lover.

Her parents and Yuma are likely dead, many of her friends most definitely so—but Kotori still has some of her loved ones among the living. Most don’t.

She says nothing of her true thoughts though, just bows her head and goes to work. In that way, she spends her days peacefully—until today, it seems. As she carefully cleans out a bloody gash on the back of a young boy, Tron approaches her.

He’s older now, no longer confined to the body of a child. The galaxy still mars his face, and he shall forever appear younger than his three sons, but the reclamation of his former height has seemed to ease some secret fear of his. His shoulders are more relaxed, his eyes kinder, even if recent events have brought back the shadows that rest beneath his gaze.

He watches silently as she works, and Kotori makes no attempt at conversation. She has an inkling as to why he’s here—and she doesn’t like it.

He finally speaks to her, after it’s clear she won’t be the one to start the conversation. “Have you heard of Numbers Force?”

Kotori continues her work, carefully dabbing at the bloody wound with a damp cloth. “It’s what they’ve started calling us, isn’t? Tokunosuke was the one who suggested it.”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ve heard of it.” She gingerly cleans away the last of the dried blood, murmuring soothing words of comfort when the boy flinches.

“And the Elite?”

She pauses. Her patient peeks up through his bangs, curious, but Kotori turns his face away. It wouldn’t do for him to stretch his back and tear at his wounds.

“No,” she admits. “That… I haven’t heard of it, before now.” She picks up a small bottle beside her work table, full of salve. She starts to apply the cream onto the wounds to keep away infection, wiping her hands clean on a rag once she is finished. “What is it?”

“A fighting force,” Tron tells her, watching her reaction carefully. “A group of soldiers to fight Academia, the offensive side of Numbers Force.”

“Academia?”

“The people who attacked us.”

“Academia,” Kotori repeats, tasting each syllable. It feels odd to give the nameless killers a title. Wrong, almost. She liked it better when they were nameless.

She begins to bandage the teen’s wounds, placing a large cotton square over the gash and binding it to his back. “Why are you telling me this? I don’t duel.”

“You could learn,” Tron offers, “but I’m not asking you join the Elite. I’m asking you to help us arm them.”

She ties off the bandages, checking if they’re secure and nudging the boy off the seat once she’s satisfied. Unable to put it off any longer, she finally turns to face Tron, absently wiping the last of the salve off her fingers. “What do you mean?”

“I want you join a division of scientists,” he explains, “to keep up with Academia’s technology. Support, in other words.”

She hesitates, uncertain. “I could do more good here,” she says finally, her words careful and cautious. “I’m sorry but… I’m a doctor, not a scientist.”

Tron nods slowly, obviously displeased. “I’m aware—and that is exactly why we need you. I know how to create weapons, Kotori, but no one knows the limits of the human body and what it can handle quite like a doctor does. You could help us greatly.” His voice lowers, his words insistent and persuasive. “They go out to fight, and they come back—maybe injured, maybe not—but they come back. You could help us with that, Kotori. You could help us keep them _alive_.”

It’s tempting, that’s for sure. Kotori is well aware how many of her friends might have already joined this “Elite”, and the chance to help keep them alive—well, why would she say no?

Except, she can’t. Not really. Not when she looks around this very room and sees the sick and dying, sees the grief that lingers in their tired eyes and hears the quiet muttering of comfort. Not when she remembers the wheezing breaths of those who had died from the smoke, her manager and his lost daughter, the gold-eyed boy who trusted no one.

Kotori loves her friends with all her heart—that remains true. To protect them, she would do anything. But she’s starting to realize that for all that she’s willing to sacrifice for them, these people aren’t one of them. She can’t abandon these strangers; she can’t run from their tired eyes.

Her friends have survived without her before. Surely, she thinks, they can do so again.

“No,” she tells him, turning away. “No, I—these people need me too, Tron. I can’t… I can’t abandon them. I can’t help you with this.”

“Kotori—”

“I said I won’t,” Kotori snaps, her patience fraying. She’s tired of the conversation, has been ever since it started. She doesn’t want to be convinced otherwise, doesn’t want to be forced to choose between her friends and the lives of all these people.

Because her friends would surely win, and Kotori would never be able to fully forgive herself for that.

“Please leave me alone,” she says, and although she means for it to be angry and demanding, her words come out tired and pleading. She wants to be alone. She wants to breathe air untainted by disinfectant, be surrounded by silence instead of gloomy mutterings. She wants to get away from this place, from Tron and his painful suggestion.

Thankfully, Tron seems to understand that, because he withdraws, quiet. “All right,” he tells her, softly and carefully, not wanting to offend her. “Should you ever change your mind… the offer is always open.”

“I won’t,” Kotori affirms.

He doesn’t answer, just acquiesces to her silent wishes and leaves. She waits until she can no longer hear him and then makes a short dash in the opposite direction. She escapes the medical ward and its suffocating presence, and walks aimlessly around the Tower’s halls, her mind far off.

She wonders, did she make the right choice? Or is she simply fooling herself into believing she is? Is it selfish of her, to leave her friends in favor of strangers? Or—

“Ah, Kotori! I was looking for you!”

The cry jolts her from her thoughts, and she looks up, a weak smile spreading across her face. “Takashi,” she greets, slowing her pace so her long-time friend can catch up to her. “How have you been? I haven’t seen you… at all, really. I’m glad you’re all right.”

His answering smile is just as worn as her own, perhaps even more so. “Same here. I haven’t seen you in weeks!” he laughs, but it’s strained. “Actually, I haven’t seen much of anyone, really…”

Kotori frowns at him, worry welling up within her. She takes note of the shadows under his eyes, how his usually groomed hair is fly-away and messy. There’s something desperate in his gaze, something pained, and she has the sudden feeling that this is yet another conversation she doesn’t want to be having.

“Which… to summarize, Kotori, I have something I need to ask you.”

She closes her eyes and sighs, readying herself for whatever he throws at her. “…Yes?”

Takashi gives her an apologetic smile. “Well, I just assumed…since you’ve been working with the doctors, you probably saw most of the people here right? Ah… did you happen to see Durbe, by any chance?”

Her heart drops, her face pales. Her hands start to shake and for a moment she doesn’t see the hopeful, desperate face of her friend but Durbe as she had last seen him. Blood on his cheek and dust in his hair, thanking her for helping him, the children he saved watching him go with admiring and worried eyes.

Takashi is still talking, unaware of her reaction. “It’s all right if you haven’t…! It’s just I saw Mizael, earlier, and I asked him too, but he just stormed off, so I figured he got injured or something, you know…? And since you’re a doctor, I thought—”

He knows, Kotori thinks, listening mutely to Takashi’s desperate spiel. He knows, but he won’t admit it, because if he does then that means Durbe’s dead, and Durbe can’t possibly be dead.

He knows, and he wants Kotori to lie to him. To tell him it’s okay, that Durbe’s just injured and that Mizael’s over-reacting, that his close friend is alive, well, and still here.

But she can’t, she can’t lie to him. Not about this. It’s not fair: not fair to him, or Mizael, or her, and it’s not fair to Durbe either, who lived an entire lifetime built on lies. It’s not fair to any of them.

“He’s dead,” she whispers, and Takashi silences, staring at her with wide, disbelieving eyes. He tries for a smile but it falls flat, and he reaches out to her almost pleadingly.

“Kotori, what—”

“He’s dead,” she repeats, a little louder, and stares down at her interlocked fingers. Her eyes blur with tears, and they drip and spatter on her hands, icy cold against the warmth. “I’m sorry, Takashi, I’m so sorry, but he’s dead, he’s gone, he’s not—he’s not here, he hasn’t been for…f-for three, four weeks now, I’m _sorry_ —”

“Shut up!” Takashi yells suddenly, his voice breaking. He shoves her hard and Kotori lets him, stumbling back even as he turns away. “Shut up, that’s a lie, he can’t be dead—”

“He is, he’s dead… Takashi, please, I’m sorry—”

“He’s a fucking Barian Emperor!” Takashi yells and grips his hair, tears streaming down his face. “He’s a warrior, he’s a shield, he sucks at geometry and aces history and, a-and… and he can’t be fucking _dead_!”

Kotori shakes from the force of her sobs, trembles as she faces her friend. He stares back at her, breathing hard, his fingers still entwined in his hair, desperate and broken and grieving.

“I’m so sorry,” Kotori whispers, her throat tight, and Takashi’s breath hitches just a bit as he stares down at her blotchy and tear-streaked face, as he spies the horrible truth in her eyes.

“No,” he whispers, and then he runs, scrambling away from her. Whether he is running from her, or the truth, Kotori doesn’t know— _don’t shoot the messenger_ —and she can’t find it in her to care.

She should chase after him, she thinks, to make sure he’s okay—but she can’t, not really, because how can she check if someone is okay when she herself is falling apart? So she sinks to the floor and stays there, letting the tears run freely down her face and stain the floor as she mourns.

Takashi runs, and Kotori lets him go.

***

She has made a mistake.

She has made a mistake, and it’s not her that’s paying for it. She wishes it was, because then at least she could say she deserved it.

“Have you seen Takashi anywhere? Anywhere at all? The cameras caught him leaving the safe area but he hasn’t come back and it’s been a few hours—”

Kotori let Takashi run, and she shouldn’t have. She should have known this would happen, because Durbe had been Takashi’s friend and Takashi had never dealt with grief well, had always tried to be logical when in truth his emotions ruled him. She can see how it happened, can see why he did it. However, for revenge or confirmation, she isn’t sure.

 _Does it matter?_ she thinks to herself, turning away and running from the room. She’s not entirely sure where she’s going or what she’s doing but in the end, that doesn’t matter either, as long as she does something this time. As long as she can save this one friend, it doesn’t matter.

At last she crashes into a room she’s been in only twice before, and she stops in the doorway, chest heaving as she gasps for air, her breath wheezing and rough. She hasn’t been able to breathe right since the fire.

She ignores the concerned and shocked look Kaito gives her as he rises from his chair. The screen before him blinks with little lights, cameras focused on the outside to search for Academia. If anyone can help her, it’s Kaito.

Kotori lets her breaths ease as much as they can in a minute before striding up to him and grabbing his coat desperately. He’s her only hope, her last chance for saving anyone, and for some irrational reason she fears he’ll shut her down.

“Takashi,” she rasps, and winces at how raw her voice sounds. “Takashi, he’s gone missing… please, find him!”

Kaito steps away from her, and hesitates—it’s likely that Takashi is already dead—but he’s always had a soft spot for her, and he of all people can understand the consuming desperation of wanting to save someone you care about. So he sits back in the chair and scans the AR immediately, using what little resources he has to track Takashi’s broken D-Gazer. Destroyed as it is, it’s still registered, he explains as she watches him work with dull eyes.

Even with the AR gone, he can still find him. Only if Takashi still has it on him.

They get lucky; a moment later a signal appears, weak and fluttering but there, blinking on the edge of Kaito’s range.

She recognizes the place, memorizes what little landmarks are left and leaves. She doesn’t thank Kaito, doesn’t think too. She’s too wired to remember too, her thoughts swimming around her head in a whirlpool of guilt and determination.

The only thing she takes with her as she leaves is a small handgun, well-made and unused, fully loaded. She’d found it ages ago, shoved in a drawer beside expired medication and scalpels.

Kotori doesn’t duel, and hasn’t bothered to learn how. With this by her side, she won’t need to.

***

She finds him easily, though in truth it’s more like Takashi finds her.

Kotori hears the yells and laughter long before she sees them, hears the roar of the mechanized monsters and Takashi’s cry of pain just as she rounds the corner, the gun clenched tight in her sweaty palms.

She takes in the scene rapidly, barely recognizing what she sees: Takashi on the floor of the alley, scrapped and bruised, his eyes still red and puffy from tears; the Academia soldiers—three, all wearing the same blue uniform and sinister masks—standing over him, wicked smirks on their faces; and the soft pink light emanating from their duel disks, the same light that swept away perhaps a thousand souls into cards.

She doesn’t think about her actions, doesn’t have time too. She brings up the gun and shoots recklessly, the recoil jerking her shoulder and throwing her shot wild. It hits the wall of the alley and reflects off, clattering behind the soldiers. It’s enough to startle them, and they stumble back, suddenly afraid. The light fades from the duel disks, the smirks fall of their faces; dueling is a skill at which they excel, facing an actual weapon is almost unheard of.

One soldier cries out, his duel disk glowing blue. Kotori flinches, bringing up the gun again no matter how much it hurts her shoulder, but all he does is fade away—teleported? The other one follows suit, and she almost thinks that they’ll be okay, it’s over, but one stays behind.

The fear has faded from his face; a snarl now graces his features. He spits at her and her fallen friend, roars “Scum should just die!” as he charges, his duel disk brought up like a sword, the pink light glowing ever brighter and ever more sinister.

She points the gun at him and doesn’t think, doesn’t remember in the heat of the moment what is fatal and what is not, and realizes she couldn’t control it even if she tried. So Kotori shoots blindly, shoots the gun on faith alone and prays to any god that might still listen that she doesn’t miss.

The bang is deafening, the silence that falls over them even more so. The soldier’s cry fades, his body slumping forward and slamming heavily on the dirty ground with a clang. The light recedes, his duel disk melts away. He doesn’t move again.

Kotori stands frozen in the mouth of the alley, Takashi still collapsed on the ground behind her in horrified silence. Her hands shake and her breaths wheeze, and she can’t tell whether the tears that prick her eyes are from shock or horror.

“Kotori,” Takashi whispers, his voice hoarse. There’s something broken in his words, something that whispers “forgive me” and something that sounds too close to terror for her comfort. “ _Kotori_.”

She doesn’t have the breath to answer; she isn’t sure what she could say regardless. She walks towards the prone form of the soldier haltingly, every step an effort to make. She nudges his body with her foot, sees the dark puddle pooling beneath him and dripping steadily from his mouth, and knows it’s blood.

The gun clatters from her hands and she follows it, falling hard onto her knees as her body starts to shake. The tears run freely down her face, stinging her cold cheeks and irritating her eyes. The still-warm blood of the soldier—the soldier she _killed_ —seeps through the legs of her jeans, stains her shaking hands a messy crimson that smears when she interlocks her fingers.

She presses her shaking hands into her stomach, bowing over them and letting her tears drip on the ground. She has wept so much these past few hours it hurts to cry, the tears squeezed through swollen eyes as they run hot and slow down her face.

“You’re an idiot, Takashi,” she whispers finally, her voice choked and all but unrecognizable for the roughness it contains. “An absolute… an absolute _idiot_.”

He doesn’t answer, and she finds she doesn’t mind. The silence of the night is heavy and thick, the weight of her sin bearing down on her, and as Kotori stays bowed over her bloody hands and the still cooling body of the soldier, she wonders if her lack of regret makes her a bad person.

Because she doesn’t regret it. If it meant saving their lives, she would do it again in a heartbeat.

That’s what frightens her the most.

***

When they finally return to the base, Kotori makes the guards escort Takashi—silent the whole walk back, his eyes sorrowful—to the medical wing. They try to take her too, alarmed by the dried blood clinging to her clothes and flaking off her fingers, but she refuses.

“I have something I need to do,” she tries to explain, weakly. “I have…”

It’s Tetsuo who saves her, her childhood friend walking up when he hears the commotion. Just as Kotori had immediately volunteered to be part of the medical wing, Tetsuo had joined the small group of people willing to guard the safe zone from Academia.

His eyes widen when he sees her, sweet little Kotori covered in blood and a gun dangling from her fist. He stares at her, at her bloody knees, scrapped hands, and wild eyes. She stares back, a silent plea written on her face.

Tetsuo reaches out and gently pries the gun from her stiff and sore fingers, but steps away after. He doesn’t try to lead Kotori back, doesn’t ask where she’s going or what she’s thinking.

“Come back soon,” he tells her softly. He shoos the other guards away and watches her leave the safe area with understanding eyes. The faint lights from the remaining street lamps illuminate his figure, and his still form, steady and strong, is the last thing Kotori sees as she turns the corner into the shadows.

She wanders the streets for an hour, creeping her way along the broken walls and empty streets, searching for a rumor on memory alone.

She knows when she finds it, her fingers brushing the rough outline of a painting. The wall that some survivors had started calling the Memorial, where the painted forms of the dead and missing smiled down upon those left behind.

Kotori can barely see in the dim light, but she can see well enough to know what she’s looking at. The rough image of Durbe, a shield by his feet and a book in his arms, smiles off to the side. Smeared on the wall above his head with yellow crayon, made by sloppy and childish hands, rests a lopsided halo. A larger form stands beside him, pink wings on their back. She remembers Alit, distraught and angry, grief etched in his face as he fled the Tower, Mizael following close behind a week after she’d arrived.

She closes her eyes and turns away. They aren’t who she came for, however much their deaths will haunt her.

Three paintings after them, she finds the two people she never would have expected to see in such a place, so long they had been gone. Yuma and Astral, together as they always deserved to be, hands reaching for the sky. Yuma’s painted face is turned away from the viewer, his vibrant eyes fixed on the sky. She finds it bitterly accurate, an old wound long since dulled by time and loss. Yuma had always been far more in love with the stars than he’d been in love with Kotori.

Kotori kneels before their image, looks up at the painting and can almost see the wide, enthusiastic smile painted on Yuma’s face.

She remembers the day he left, almost four years ago. It’s a bitter memory, a memory of happier times. A cherished memory now tainted by bitterness and loss.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” Kotori whispers into the night, breaking the still silence. She gazes distantly into the sky, her mind thoroughly lost in memories. “To be honest, Yuma… I was beginning to think I’d never see you again.”

She rubs her hands together, picking off the dried blood of the soldier. “Did you know? I kept my promise. I tried to, anyway. That’s more than you ever did, I think.”

Kotori blinks, the chill of the night air bringing her back to her senses. “I tried to keep everyone safe, just like you asked. You could at least have kept your end. Didn’t you say you’d come back?”

She glances down at her bloody hands, rubs her fingers together and watches the blood flake to the ground. “Figures the one promise you break, it’s to me. Idiot.”

There’s no heat to her words, even if some part of her means them. Life is too short to be angry forever. Her life’s too short to pretend it wasn’t always this way.

“I tried to protect them,” she repeats, her voice cracking. “I did my best, you know? I… tried, and Takashi, the class president, I saved him.” She pauses, swallowing. “You wouldn’t like _how_ though, would you? That’s okay. I… don’t either. I don’t. I never… it was just supposed to be a precaution…”

Kotori starts to shake, and then without warning she laughs, a harsh, unpleasant sound that rips its way from her throat. She slams her hand against Yuma's memorial, stray tears streaming down her face even as she smiles.

"I was going to be better this time, did you know?" she sniffs, curling her fingers against the stone. "I never told you that, did I? I was going to be better... I was going to save lives, instead of just watching... I was... I was... "

She breaks off, choking. "I wasn't going to have to watch them die... and I couldn't even do that, in the end... "

Her smile doesn’t fade, and she slumps against the cold stone. “I hated watching you fight,” she whispers. “I hated how… useless I was; how I just stood back and watched you suffer through every battle…I never told you that, either. I didn’t tell you a lot of things, looking back on it.”

Kotori wipes at her eyes, her resentful smile starting to diminish. “That’s why I wanted to become a doctor in the first place… I wanted to help people, I wanted to be useful… how stupid.”

She presses her forehead against the wall and closes her eyes. Her heart hurts, and her mind is numb, but there’s something freeing about this one-sided conversation. All these secrets she has kept locked deep in her heart spilling out to the empty air, finally free.

“Such a stupid dream,” she murmurs. “A stupid dream for a stupid girl.”

“I don’t think it’s stupid,” a voice interrupts, and she whips around, stretching her sore shoulder and nearly giving herself whiplash. Tetsuo raises his hands in a gesture of surrender, his face solemn.

Kotori stares at him, unsurprised and suddenly tired. Of course he followed her. She would have too, looking as she did.

“I don’t think it’s stupid,” Tetsuo repeats, lowering his arms and walking to stand beside her. “It’s very like you, actually. You always tried to get me and that idiot out of trouble, even if you didn’t have to.”

She turns away. “How much did you hear?”

“Enough,” he replies, and kneels down to rest a concerned hand on her shoulder. “How long have you thought that?”

“A while.”

He bites his lip and looks away awkwardly. “You never mentioned it.”

She laughs again, rubbing a dirty hand over her face. “I didn’t know how.” A pause. “I didn’t really want to.”

There’s sadness in Tetsuo’s eyes, and understanding as well. He most of all knows what it means to be friends with Yuma, who cared too much about everyone he met. Burdened as Yuma had been with the sorrows of the world, the Numbers Club had often kept their own hurts and fears buried deep beneath their smiles, not wanting to be another weight for their compassionate friend to carry.

He rubs her back gently, and then pushes up to his feet. He holds out a hand to help her up, but doesn’t try to force a smile. She’s thankful for that.

“Come on, Kotori. Let’s go back.”

She glances at his hand, looking back momentarily to Yuma’s memorial. Then Kotori sighs, and takes his hand, letting him pull her to his feet. “…Alright.”

“Can you walk?”

She blinks, slowly glancing down at her blood-stained feet. “I… I don’t think so.”

He nods and carefully sweeps her up securely in his arms, ready to set her back down should she change her mind. She doesn’t, just sags in his hold and lets herself relax. Now that she is aware of it, it’s a wonder she didn’t collapse sooner. Every part of her aches, her legs and her lungs most of all. She’s grateful Tetsuo offered to carry her, because as much as she hurts, she’s gotten to the point where she wouldn’t have asked it of him regardless.

“For the record,” Tetsuo says suddenly, breaking the fragile silence. “I don’t agree with what you said back there.” He looks down at her. “True, you saved Takashi. But you saved a bunch of others as well, not just him.” He smiles, and it’s a real smile, too wide and boyish and awkward, all Tetsuo through and through. “I think you did pretty good.”

Kotori doesn’t answer, just huffs a soft laugh and rests her head against his shoulder, a weak smile curling her lips.

For the first time all month, with blood under her fingernails and the dangers of the night threatening their safety, Kotori finally feels at peace.

“Thank you, Tetsuo.”

***

Kotori marches into Tron’s labs with her head held high and a secure smile on her lips. There’s papers clenched in her palms _—the recipient hereby agrees to spend two hours a night in the medical ward tending to patients—_ and a confidence to her step she never thought she’d have again.

“So,” Kotori says, smiling brightly in the face of Tron’s undisguised surprise. “About that offer.”


End file.
